I was born in Malaga, Spain. When I was very young, I did a lot of drawings that my teachers seemed to find very meaningful for a person of my age. My family did not pay much attention so it all faded away.
After a difficult time as a teenager shaped by family problems, I spent most of my life suffering from anxiety and stress. It wasn’t until five years ago when I started practicing yoga and meditation that my artistic skills emerged. I suddenly started painting. My paintings were totally driven and created by intuition.
Much inspired by my hometown’s main artist, Pablo Picasso, I used different materials, but it was only when I tried charcoal that I felt I could express myself. This type of material is commonly used by artists to produce realism in their art. However, I found it fascinating to make abstract art with it. The flow, the softness and the easy going way of this material helped me freely express everything I wanted.
After a difficult time as a teenager shaped by family problems, I spent most of my life suffering from anxiety and stress. It wasn’t until five years ago when I started practicing yoga and meditation that my artistic skills emerged. I suddenly started painting. My paintings were totally driven and created by intuition.
Much inspired by my hometown’s main artist, Pablo Picasso, I used different materials, but it was only when I tried charcoal that I felt I could express myself. This type of material is commonly used by artists to produce realism in their art. However, I found it fascinating to make abstract art with it. The flow, the softness and the easy going way of this material helped me freely express everything I wanted.
Impressed by the beautiful nature and friendly people of Vietnam, Monica Gonzalez Galvez has created her “Inspired in Vietnam”.
“Ho Chi Minh City”: Ho Chi Minh is a city where everything is ok, there are no rules.
This allowed me to enjoy making what I would normally consider mistakes in the line trace or the structure of the painting. 
“Cham Islands”: I jumped into the crystal clear, turquoise water and there it was, an extraordinarily beautiful underwater world.
While diving I was overcome by strong feelings - an inexplicable freedom, a great immensity, but especially, I felt nature’s power. 
"Da Nang": Living in Da Nang started to become my dream.
The city at night - all the colorful lights, the fireworks and the bridges - looks amazing! Da Nang not only seems another part of the world, but also a unique place in its own country. |
After some time working on paintings, I realized it had been a type of therapy to express my introverted emotions and that definitely helped me heal in many ways.
After giving it a try, my paintings were selected to be exhibited at the International Contemporary Art Fair in Malaga in 2017. To my surprise, my work was acknowledged to have a very unique style.
At that time, I had a period during which I did not feel inspired to do anything creative and I was traveling around the world. Then I arrived in Vietnam and everything changed. I felt a wave of positive emotions that made me stop my wandering and stay longer. The feeling about Vietnam came instantaneously. The emotions arising were happiness, excitement and the idea of a new beginning. As I got to experience more, things were getting progressively better. It was all about people, places, food, movement and color. I traveled around the country, visiting many places and cities and all those experiences were gathered into amazing memories.
A few months after I arrived, I went to Da Nang where all my creativity came back to me. I felt the need to express the emotions that emerged during all my traveling around the country. I made a small series entitled “Inspired in Vietnam”, which helped me understand the expressions of feelings about places and experiences.
I love helping people and I found Vietnam the perfect location to do so. Art had helped me so much that I thought I could use it to help others. I volunteered to teach art to children in an orphanage in Da Nang. The experience was so good that I’m currently training as an art therapy coach to help others through art. Vietnam and its people have deeply inspired me to choose this path. Thank you so much Vietnam!
| Monica Gonzalez’s pieces of art were displayed at the International Arts Exchange 2019 in Da Nang in November. |
By Monica Gonzalez Galvez
